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“the thirteenth clue”

(Continued from page 33).

“Nothing of that kind,” laughed Impskill.

“Take a look at this, will you?”

Zeb took the specimen with the light of curiosity in his eyes. “This is a fine little nugget,” he said. “Wherever did you get it?”

“I'm wanting you to tell me where it comes from!” said Impskill.

Barrett placed the specimen under his powerful microscope, and a puzzled look came over his usually open countenance.

“That's not from Waihi and it's not from Thames. Otago or the West Coast,” he said. “The crystals differ from all the known gold fields in New Zealand.

“And yet,” he continued with growing excitement, “it's from somewhere in this country, I can tell by the colour of the gold.

“I wonder if it's come from the Crawley country?”

“The Crawley country?” exclaimed Impskill. “Where's that. I've never heard of it.”

“What!” said Zeb. “Never heard of Bill Crawley—everybody in Matamata knows about him—he's a legend in the place.”

“Tell me,” said Impskill urgently.

Zeb laid down the nugget reluctantly.

“Bill Crawley died in Matamata hospital two months ago,” he said, “and with him died all chance, it seems, of solving the mystery of where he found his gold.

“Crawley, for the past 30 years, has made a yearly visit to Matamata. He always arrived on a big horse, heavily loaded, and he always had a gun in the crook of his arm and two revolvers in his belt. Bill's first visit invariably was to the bank and the Bank Manager has told me the people of Matamata would be surprised if they knew how much gold Crawley brought with him each year.

“Anyway, after he had been to the Bank and then stabled his horse, Bill was the most cheerful soul in Matamata. He would keep things lively at the hotel and was very free in his spending. Good-hearted, too, was Bill. Any charity could count on him for good help during his visit. Then one morning he would be gone, and another year would go by before anyone saw Bill Crawley again.

“Three months' ago, Bill came in as usual, but while at the Bank he looked ill and acted queerly, so Roberts, the Manager, advised him to go to hospital. They found he had a high temperature —a very bad case of 'flu. He was well looked after in hospital, but in delirium he seemed afraid someone might find his gold mine.

“When he was over the fever he was very weak.

“I heard that Lauder visited him. Bill had heard that Lauder was a crooner, and so … .”

“That will do for the moment, thanks, Barrett. I must now visit the hospital. I'm very grateful for the information you have supplied.”

With these words, Impskill was on his way and the high bicycle hummed as he raced down the hill to the hospital.

An interview with Sister Round, who had nursed Crawley through his illness, was readily granted as soon as the Matron knew the identity of her distinguished visitor.

Impskill wasted no words.

“Tell me, Sister, about Bill Crawley,” he said.

“There's not much to tell,” she said. “He had got over the worst of his 'flu—only weak and seemed to be coming along fine until the day Lauder called.

“I remember that day well,” she continued.

“I said to Crawley, ‘here's the noted crooner, Pat Lauder, to see you.’

“‘That's fine,’ said Bill Crawley, ‘I've neither seen nor heard a crooner. Bring this one along.’

“Well,” continued Sister Round, “Lauder said although he did not know Crawley he liked to visit the sick and hoped Bill wouldn't mind him calling for a chat.

“Crawley said it was very decent of Lauder to call, as there were very few whom he (Crawley) could call friends in Matamata, and he was feeling rather lonely.

“Then he asked Lauder if he would mind crooning a little to him.

“‘Oh!’ said Pat Lauder. ‘I don't think it would be right to croon in hospital, would it Sister?'

“Well, I said, I was afraid it might not be regular.

“Then Bill Crawley reached under his pillow and handed a little gold nugget to Lauder. ‘That,’ said Crawley, ‘comes from my private gold mine, near the headwaters of the Mungatu. And it is yours if you will croon to me now.’

“Lauder looked at me appealingly, and I nodded, signalling him to make his crooning low.

“He did so. It quite depressed me. But when he finished, Crawley said a strange thing: ‘I wanted to live,’ he said, ‘but now, having heard that, and also that the world is gradually filling up with crooners, I die happy.’

“And he never recoverd from that minute,” she continued. “Just turned his face to the wall, refused his food, and gladly passed away within the hour.”

Impskill's decision was made on the moment. He was morally certain that Lauder, having the Crawley nugget, had been obsessed with the idea of finding the Crawley gold mine. Hence his sudden disappearance from Matamata.

Next day saw Impskill Lloyd aboard a yacht at Taupo on his way to Waihaha, a lovely little settlement on an unfrequented portion of the lake's foreshore. And this time he left Gillespie behind.

Arrived there, he soon made friends with the local Maoris. He described Lauder to them and tried to croon. They all went off into gales of laughter.

“He te fella make te funny noises!” (Continued on page 37.)

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said Peti, the Chieftain. “He come here all ri. Try find where Bill Crawley go.”

“Not see him or Bill again,” he added.

The next day, Impskill, with Peti as a guide and a small party of natives, all strongly mounted on Maori “hoi-hau” (horses) set off past the lonely Waihaha Falls and struck across country towards the headwaters of the Mungatu.

At the point of the forest above the river, where an ancient whaka (used for trapping the alert native wood pigeon) is still suspended high off the ground, Peti paused and pointed to some foot prints in the soft rich humus beside the whaka.

“Lauder, eh?” he said, and started off down towards the river.

On the brink of the river a lightning blasted rimu trunk stood mute testimony of some recent storm.

The main branch lay across the river-bed as it had fallen. The river was now low, and Lloyd saw that which gripped attention—a shred of clothing caught between a sharp stem of the fallen tree and the gravel of the riverbed.

“The last proof,” he exclaimed, as he reclaimed the piece of cloth. This is a part of Lauder's suit—the part missing when I examined the body in the Matamata signal cabin.

To a skilled mind like Impskill Lloyd's, the rest of the solution of the Matamata Mystery was easy.

“Peti,” he said. “We can now return.

“Lauder was not murdered at all. He was killed by a convulsion of nature!”

The twelve possible causes of death were subsequently explained in a paper read to Scotland Yard by Impskill Lloyd and circulated throughout the Police Forces of the world as a set of hints and aids in the detection of crime and the analysis of evidence.

They are summarised here briefly, for the enlightenment of the many thousands who have followed, with breath more or less bated, the many vicissitudes of this master mystery.

Lauder got lost in the wild country at the back of the Mungatu while searching secretly for Bill Crawley's gold mine.

He was practically starving, on the banks of the Mungatu when lightning struck the tree under which he was sheltering. Besides striking the tree, the lightning electrocuted Lauder, who was pinned beneath one of the falling branches and hurled into the river where a sliver of rimu penetrated his heart.

The lightning also burnt the poor victim, and one of the tree limbs had lain across his neck after his immersion in the river.

Thus it will be seen how being drowned, burnt, struck, impaled, choked, frightened, electrocuted, felled, and having his ribs caved in, all occurred from the misfortune of Lauder having been just where he was when the lightning struck.

These were nine of the possible causes of death deduced by Impskill Lloyd in his first five minutes over the case. Starvation (the tenth possible cause) has already been explained and proved. Heart disease, the eleventh possible cause dealt with, was shown to be latent in the subject, and the twelfth, poisoned, was undoubtedly due to an enterprising katipo spider resenting the presence of Lauder's body on the banks of his river.

How the body got to the Matamata signal box was also discovered by the genius of Lloyd.

He proved that a subsequent flood had carried the body to Lake Taupo and then down the great Waikato River to the Arapuni Hydro-electric Works. Here a workman, shocked by the appearance of the floating body in his section of water, became frightened of being involved in what looked like a clear case of murder, and ran the body in his car to the Matamata signal box, where he deposited it, having every confidence in the Railway Department's ability to deal adequately with any problem that might confront it.

It need only be added—that Impskill Lloyd, before leaving the Mungatu region, picked enough from the Crawley mine to reward him amply for all the trouble he had taken over the Matamata Signal Cabin Mystery. (The End.)